Another abstract painting by Earth. This image shows a portion of the Arabian desert in the Ar-Rub al-Khali (the empty quarter) of southern Saudia Arabia and northern Yemen. The dry river channels in the lower portion of this image are ancient features formed when this region had a wetter climate. The linear dunes are generated by strong prevailing winds blowing across the dune fields and the large formation just below the dunes is a dry delta. The dunes are slowly covering up the older erosion channels, while occasional rains in the mountains south of this region wash sediments into the delta. The mixing of materials from these sources produces the green-colored sand between the dunes and the delta. These colors are not real since most of what is seen in this image was derived from the infrared portion of the spectrum.

The only evidence of mankind's presence in this image is an airstrip approximately 1 mile long that is nestled between two rows of dunes near the top of the image, a camp 6 dune rows south of the airstrip, some vehicle tracks northeast of the delta, and a strange diamond-shaped feature just left of the lower part of the delta.

The area covered by this image is approximately 50x70 miles. A full-resolution crop of the image file is available here that shows the detail present in the full image print.